Historically, only scraps from meal preparation have ended up in the compost heap, leaving all the gooey, crusty and goopy leftovers for the landfill.
But thanks to a pilot program launched last week by the university and Marborg Industries, all of the food waste created at the De La Guerra dining commons is currently being converted to compost. University officials hope to eventually expand the program across the campus.
“The vision is that when these materials come on campus, they never leave,” Ron Cortez, associate vice chancellor of administrative services, said in a prepared statement. “We should have the capability to compost it and to use it on site.”
As workers prepared meals at the dining hall yesterday afternoon, they tossed carrot peelings and broccoli stalks into green bins. Across the room, other staff members took used plates from trays and scraped off leftover food bits.
Pierce Kocjan, a student supervisor, wheeled a green container down a short hallway and out into the sunlight, dumping its contents into a massive trash compactor.
With between 1,200 and 1,600 meals served for both lunch and dinner, as well as 550 meals during the dining hall’s late-night hours, there is definitely plenty of material to compost.
Between six and seven tons of food scraps should be collected weekly through the program, said Mark Rousseau, the energy and environmental manager for the university’s Housing and Residential Services.
Those scraps will be collected once a week and taken to Marborg’s facility in downtown Santa Barbara, he said, where they will be grinded and combined with other green waste before being composted.
While there are still some glitches to work out, particularly to ensure only compostable material makes it into the green bins, Rousseau said the program has been moving along smoothly since it began a week ago.
“It hasn’t been too hard to retrain people,” he said.
And although UCSB officials had to pay for another trash dumpster at the dining hall — since the trash compactor is now being used solely for food scraps — Rousseau said the university should save money on dumping fees at Tajiguas Landfill.
“For sure it will break even,” he said. “It might even save us a little money. And it’s the right thing to do.”
University officials would like to eventually see the materials being sent to Marborg’s recycling facility return as composting materials for groundskeepers to use throughout the campus.
Since Marborg uses sealed containers, the university can also avoid the problems that typically accompany composting projects on campus, such as rodents, bugs and foul odors.
“As we know, open composting has some side effects,” Cortez said. “This way is much cleaner.”
Officials will monitor the program for three or four months before determining whether to expand it to the other three campus dining halls. Cortez said he hopes the pilot program will inspire others to pursue similar ventures.
“My hope is that this project provides a statement to all of those involved in sustainability,” he said in the news release. “While times may be tight financially, we cannot rest or become discouraged. We must continue to seek environmentally beneficial partnerships that continue to improve the environment.”